The present disclosure relates to communication and, more particularly, to selecting an access point based on various quality parameters and maintaining a link with a predetermined wireless link quality.
When user equipment is located at an area where multiple access points are available, the user equipment needs to select one having better link quality than others. Typically, user equipment considers signal strength of a probe response frame to estimate a wireless link quality. For example, user equipment may search and select one of access points using signal strength of probe response frames transmitted from the access points. However, it is not proper to use the signal strength of the probe response frame as only a quality parameter to estimate wireless link quality. The signal strength of signals associated with access points dynamically varies due to various factors, such as the number of user equipment coupled to an access point, interference/noise signal strength around an access point, channel utilization, available admission capacity, and so forth. Accordingly, the signal strength of the probe response frame is not stable and accurate parameter to estimate wireless link quality.
Furthermore, since a downlink signal transmitted from an access point typically has signal strength higher than that of an uplink signal transmitted from user equipment, the signal strength of the probe response frame (e.g., downlink signal) cannot represent overall quality of communication link between user equipment and an access point. When an access point is improperly selected and coupled to user equipment based on inaccurate quality parameters, it might cause interruption in a communication service and deteriorate overall performance in the communication service.